


like the sun rises

by raewrites



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Relationship Study, TAGS ARE MY BANE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2035635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewrites/pseuds/raewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Iwa-chan.”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“When did you realize you were in love with me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the sun rises

**Author's Note:**

> i don't remember why i started writing this. but sometimes you just gotta grab hold of a metaphor and never let go.

“Iwa-chan.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“When did you realize you were in love with me?”  
  
The question _sounds_ innocent enough, spoken confidently in the dark, drifting to where Iwaizumi lies sprawled out on the top bunk of their dorm room, blankets bundled at his feet, body drenched in sweat, comforted only by the way it slowly cools against his skin with each weak circulation of the air conditioner humming on the wall.   
  
What Oikawa’s words ‘sound like’ and what they ‘mean’, Iwaizumi knows, never quite overlap, true meaning hidden behind easy smiles and inviting tones. But Iwaizumi’s practiced enough to know that it’s a serious question seeking a serious response, that if they were face-to-face, perhaps Oikawa would be giving him said easy smile, but knows that beneath him, Oikawa’s expression is most likely tense, lips bitten, gripping the hem of his shirt a bit too tightly between his fingers.   
  
Iwaizumi huffs, glancing across the room at one of the many photographs pinned to the cork board, it’s glossy surface reflecting the moonlight peeking out from between their drawn curtains. It’s a photo of the two of them as children, a photo he remembers Oikawa finding the day before they moved out, rummaging through old belonging for any last minute additions to their already bursting suitcases and storage containers.  
  
 _“Hey check this out, Iwa-chan.”_ He had said, catching Iwaizumi's attention from where he had been kneeling next to a particularly full box, attempting to wrestle it into submission with numerous layers of duct tape. He remembers glancing over, grabbing Oikawa’s wrist and pushing it away as the other shoved the picture in his face, grumbling something about _‘I can’t fucking see it if you do that, moron’_ and allowing the image to focus before him.   
  
It’s an old picture, crumpled and torn at the corner, but it’s still intact enough to make out the image of the two of them, around age six or seven, soaked head to toe in muddy creek water, grass stained shirts plastered to their small frames; the bridges of their noses sunburnt, scabs and bruises donning the ends of their elbows, the curves of their knees and ankles, the crest of their cheekbones, and ridge of their shoulders, exposed where the sleeves have been rolled up.   
  
Oikawa’s doing his typical pose, peace sign thrown at the camera, tongue sticking out, arm hooked around Iwaizumi’s neck as he drapes himself over the (at the time) taller boy, something, Iwaizumi notes, Oikawa never quite grew out of. His younger self is smiling in the picture as well, only the slightest tug at the corner of his lips, visible only if one knew it was there in the first place. The look in his eyes reflects a strange mixture of annoyance and fondness, a mixture Iwaizumi supposes isn’t so strange given the frequency in which he feels both emotions swirl inside him at any given moment he’s in Oikawa’s presence. Perhaps more annoyance at the time because Iwaizumi distinctly remembers pounding his fist on the top of Oikawa’s head moments after the picture was taken.   
  
 _“Remember this?”_ Oikawa had asked, sitting himself on the ground next to Iwaizumi, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, leaning into him.   
  
 _“Yeah.”_ Iwaizumi had replied, plucking the picture from between Oikawa’s fingers, turning it over in his hands, noting the date written in his mother’s slanted penmanship on the back.  
  
 _“We fell into the creek.”_  
  
 _“You_ pulled _me into the creek.”_  
  
 _“Not on purpose!”_  
  
 _“Right, you slipped on a rock, grabbed the back of my shirt, and we both fell in.”_  
  
Iwaizumi remembers Oikawa huffing, irritated, pouting childishly as he snatched the picture back from Iwaizumi before shoving it into his face again, pointing incriminatingly at his younger self, faded with time, _“You see that bruise on my forehead? You kneed me.”_  
  
 _“I feel the need to remind you that it wasn’t my fault.”_  
  
 _“Maybe if you had been sturdier, Iwa-chan.”_  
  
 _“Maybe if you didn’t have a shit sense of balance, Oikawa.”_  
  
 _“Maybe if you didn’t have...shitty comebacks.”_  
  
 _“Good one.”_  
  
Iwaizumi recalls all of this as clouds drift over the night sky, blocking the light of the moon, the picture disappearing within sudden pitch darkness, the memory dissipating along with it as Oikawa speaks up again, impatient.  
  
“Hey, Iwa-chan. Did you fall asleep on me?"  
  
Iwaizumi considers feigning sleep, allowing his breath to imitate a steady rhythm in the hopes that Oikawa will let his question go unanswered, forgotten by morning. There’s another minute of silence, Iwaizumi’s eyebrows creased in contemplation before he finally speaks, voice rough, almost clumsy in the fragile stillness of the room.   
  
“What time does the sun rise in the morning?”  
  
“What?” Oikawa mumbles, followed by a yawn, having drifted to the brink of sleep waiting for Iwaizumi’s words, “What does that have to do with anything?”  
  
“Just answer the question.”  
  
“How should I know, my first class is at eleven.”  
  
 _“Oikawa.”_  
  
“Fine. Somewhere between five and seven I guess, it depends on the time of year?”  
  
“But it always rises, right? It may be early or late in the morning, but it’ll always rise eventually.”  
  
“Obviously?”  
  
Iwaizumi rolls over onto his back, looking up at the ceiling, reaching up to run a finger over its surface, along the cracks in its paint, chipping at it with his fingernail, holding his breath for a few seconds in preparation, allowing himself to gather his thoughts before expressing them aloud.   
  
“I don’t remember the exact moment I realized I was in love with you.”  
  
“Well that was anticlimactic.”  
  
“Shut up, you asked. I just answered.”  
  
“Boring answer."  
  
Iwaizumi frowns, dropping his hand back onto his pillow, turning his head towards the wall, speaking against it, “Okay, fine. I always sort of knew, I guess”   
  
“Okay, but then what was with all that ‘sun rise’ stuff?"  
  
The words are there, littered on the tip of his tongue, fighting to make themselves known, and Iwaizumi bites his lip, pondering the wording for his sentiments, heart beating incessantly against his ribcage. Iwaizumi wonders when such words meant so much, whether they had always been there, or were conceived with such importance.    
  
"I know I love you like I know the sun rises.”   
  
Iwaizumi briefly wonders if Oikawa can hear his heart beating in the breathless silence, deafening until Oikawa speaks a soft, “Like the sun rises?”  
  
Iwaizumi sighs, closing his eyes hard, hard enough to spark reds and purples behind his eyelids, saying his next words in a rush, as if he would forget them otherwise, as if they would fade away within the darkness of the room, lost among the shadows.  
  
"There are days I don’t remember, days that weren’t _worth_ remembering but I know I loved you that day like I know the sun rose on that morning. I know I’ll love you tomorrow like I know the sun will rise at five or six or seven, it doesn’t even matter because at some point sunlight will seep in between those curtains and I’ll still love you, alright?"  
  
Before Iwaizumi even finishes his sentence, he can hear the ruffling of Oikawa’s sheets beneath him, hear the creak of metal as Oikawa lifts himself out of his bed, hear the pad of bare feet against the rungs of the ladder as Oikawa climbs up into his bunk, breaking their ‘no sleeping together when the temperature is above 30 C’ rule as he curls up against Iwaizumi’s back, flushed skin against flushed skin, burying his face in the dip of Iwaizumi’s shoulder, pressing a series of feather-soft kisses along its curve before nuzzling his nose against Iwaizumi’s neck, causing the other to let out an involuntary laugh, exhaled within a breath, consequent embarrassment countered with a half-hearted, “Hey, it’s too hot for that shit. Cut it out.”  
  
“But that was so romantic, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa murmurs against his skin, arms curling around Iwaizumi to settle against the dip of his stomach, thumbs rubbing idly over the gently contoured muscles, tone teasing when he chides, “You sure you didn’t steal it from some drama?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
As the night sky clears, moonlight floods into the room once more, and as Iwaizumi tilts his head back against his pillow, he’s met with all of Oikawa, mussed hair, long eyelashes, up-turned nose, and bright eyes, hooded only slightly with sleep, glinting with something akin to adoration, soft, and Iwaizumi feels a rush of affection in return, feels as though his words were less clumsy than he thought, conveyed just as they were meant to be, if they brought them to where they are now, too hot as they lie curled into each other in the suffocating heat, but content just the same.   
  
Goosebumps spike at the back of Iwaizumi’s neck when Oikawa suddenly shifts, whispering against the underside of his jaw, fingers curling into the fabric of Iwaizumi’s sleep shirt, grasping as if it could break the physical separation between them. The words sound teasing, but what Oikawa’s words ‘sound like’ and what they ‘mean’, Iwaizumi remembers, never quite overlap.   
  
“But I love you too, Iwa-chan. Like I know the sun sets, I guess.”  
  
Iwaizumi is practiced enough to know that it’s a serious confession, perhaps confessed before, but stated again as if once could never be enough, as if Oikawa could confess countless times, sentiments bubbling over into a phenomenon even infinite confessions could never completely contain.   
  
Stated as if the sun somehow failed to rise one day, such confessions would be strong enough to bring balance, persisting in the realm of constant, irrefutable normalities.  
  
And Iwaizumi feels the same. He always has.  
  
“I appreciate it, but find your own cheesy metaphors.”  
  
 _“Rude."_


End file.
